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What causes reading disorders?

Reading disorders involve specific, brain-based difficulties in learning to recognize and decipher printed words. There is no single known cause at this time.1

Environmental factors—such as children’s experiences in the classroom or whether they were read to often as preschoolers—can play a significant role in reading ability.

In addition, research suggests that difficulty with reading may be linked to a person’s genes. This finding means that reading disorders can pass from one generation to the next. For example, some cases of reading disorders are associated with a change in genes that play a role in prenatal brain development.1

Citations

  1. Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. J. (2016). Reading disorders and dyslexia. Current Opinion in Pediatrics, 28(6), 731–735. Retrieved August 21, 2019, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5293161/
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